Analysis and comment from Memphis, Tennessee, on media, politics, culture, science, my life and anything else that catches my eye.

Sunday, September 01, 2002

Credit Where Credit's Due

When the Commercial Appeal does a good job, it must be mentioned.

In this story on plans to move students from Germantown High to other schools to better racially balance them, reporter Katherine Cromer does a very good job of just letting the facts speak for themselves.

The brouhaha began when defeated County School Board member Karen Hill cried "Racism!" and tried to get the NAACP involved in her allegations that Germantown High was being purged of blacks. Reporter Cromer did her digging and found that the changes were derived from an old plan.

She presents the numbers and guess what? Yes, Germantown will lose a goodly number of blacks, but two other, very white schools will get a larger percentage of blacks in the process, meaning all three schools will look more alike! Germantown will go from more than one-third black to more than one-quarter black, but the other two schools (Collierville and Arlington) will double their black enrollments! It's a good thing, as the evidence clearly shows.

Excellent reporting by Katherine Cromer. She keeps her opinions and thoughts out of the story and let's the facts do the work. The result is a clear refutation of the claims, which the reader can see for themselves, without any editorializing added. A reporter's job well done.